Do you believe that Jesus walked on the water Pancho or does science and reason get in the way.
The “Return” of Christ: What Does it Mean?
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Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Thanks for bringing this up.
This is a very good example of how the Holy Spirit talks to us through the text an through reason and science.
Through reason and science I believe that such event didn't happen literally.
Through the Scripture, I believe there is a message God is telling me through that story: I can overcome my greatest fears, just as Peter did, if I believe in Christ words.
As you see, we don't need to believe in a literal miracle, to grasp the spiritual message from God that can change our lives.
Now that he has answered, I’ll give you my answer if you had put the question to me: I believe he did.
Compare and contrast.
Baha’i - no
Primitive Christian - yes
So you do not believe Jesus walked on the water. Whom do you believe put that stumbling block(reason and science) so that you do not believe.(Have Faith). I know who did. He knows me by name Pancho. Everything but The Truth. That is what he does.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
No.
Reason is not a stumbling block. It is gift from the Spirit, just as faith is.
God was the one who gave me, and gave you, both reason and faith
I have faith that I can walk over water if I trust Christ. Do you also have that faith? I think you do.
If we both have that faith, then we can overcome our biggest fears.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Compare and contrast.
Baha'i: We can overcome our biggest fears if we follow the voice of Christ.
Primitive Christian: We can overcome our biggest fears if we follow the voice of Christ.
As you can see, we both can walk on water. That is faith.
You have no faith that Jesus walked on the water. I do. We don’t have the same faith.
Our readers need to see that there is a very big difference between the faith of the Baha’i religion and the faith of the primitive Christian religion.
I’m trying to draw you out of the Baha’i faith and into the primitive Christian faith. At the same time, I’m trying to dissuade others from being drawn into the Baha’i faith.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
That is not faith, my brother.
You are confusing faith with a belief. Specifically, with a belief in a supernatural event.
Faith is what makes you overcome your biggest fears and succeed.
You don't need a supernatural event for that. Do you?
Jesus said that if we had a bit of faith, we would order a mountain to move, and it would move.
Do you need a mountain to move in order to test your faith?
Let's be respectful with faith and with reason.
Both are undeserved gifts from God.
My faith is in the belief of the New Testament witness. The people who were there saw it literally happen.
No, I don’t need a supernatural event for that.
No, I don’t need a mountain to move in order to test my faith.
See my quote for the day.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
I accept and respect your intentions.
I would like also to state my intentions:
I am not trying to draw you out of the primitive Christian faith.
I am trying to let our readers note that the difference between our faiths is not in essence.
That's why I call again to compare and contrast:
Baha'i: We can overcome our biggest fears if we follow the voice of Christ.
Primitive Christian: We can overcome our biggest fears if we follow the voice of Christ.
Thinking that Peter literally walked on water or that this is a metaphorical story has nothing to do with having faith that we can overcome our biggest fears if we follow the voice of Christ.
Jesus said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing." You are apart from Him as you are baha'i faith. The Lord does not share His Glory." My Glory I will give to no other." Do you know Pancho what is in man? Here is your next assignment should you decide to take it.
Take a piece of paper and write these 2 sentences down.(if you can) Next fold the paper in half. Next set a time and a date to take that paper and unfold it in front of a mirror and read the words out loud just as written. Here are the words;
"Jesus is Lord"
" Jesus has come in the flesh."
Now watch your face react to The Name of Jesus. The Name that is above all names. Blessings!
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I believe, on the strength of the New Testament witness, that the resurrected and changed body of the Messiah has physical properties. Some of those properties are consistent with the physical properties of the natural body that all human persons have and some are not.
Paul struggled to describe the sort of body that will be raised (1 Corinthians 15:35-49.) I leave it where Paul left it.
What I haven’t done is to spiritualize what Paul wrote. What you’ve done by spiritualizing his words is going beyond what Paul said - we should be able to agree that this is part of the “new revelation” that Baha’i offers.
I’m only doing what a primitive Christian does.
Another compare and contrast opportunity, which I invite and welcome.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
No, my friend.
Baha'is, Muslims, Sikhs or Jews are not apart from Jesus just for being Baha'is, Muslims, Sikhs or Jews.
If they are apart from Him, it is because they are wicked, and they cling to their wickedness.
For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3.20)
How did the Apostles and others of his disciples recognize him when they literally saw him following his resurrection?
Has his appearance changed since his ascension into heaven? Will he look when he himself returns as he did when he himself ascended?
Of course, those are questions for Christians, not for Baha’is.
When he returns everyone will see him and know that it is he himself (Revelation 1:7). No DNA test is necessary and none will be administered.
Your question raises a new question about the Baha’i religion: The Apostles literally saw his resurrected body. They saw the scars and the wounds. They physically touched him.
Would you say that they didn’t know it was really him; they only thought it was? Would you say that it was a hallucination? Would you say that it was a real scarred and wounded human person that they saw and touched but that it was someone else, not Jesus himself?
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
If Paul struggled, and you struggle, and I struggle, let's leave it at that.
Paul didn't struggle to teach many other things. Right?
Paul starts his talk by acknowledging that many Christians of his time had different views on the subject, and wondered and debated.
He doesn't call them "fools" for believing A or B, but for wasting time in those debates.
Paul continuously "spiritualize" concepts like death and life. Continuously, over and over across his letters.
So, this "spiritualization" should not be considered as a perverse excuse made up later on in history to deny literal understandings.
Paul wrote:
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. So it is written, “The first man Adam was made a living soul.” The last Adam was made a life-giving spirit." (1 Cor 15:44,45)
So, if Paul calls the "spiritual body" of the last Adam "a life-giving spirit", why would anyone consider heretical to call the Last Adam, Jesus, a "life-giving spirit"?
You haven’t left it where Paul left it. You spiritualized what he said and you struggle with what that spiritualizing has produced.
Don’t go beyond what is written (1 Corinthians 4:6). Those who spiritualize what is written (be they Baha’i, Christian or anything else) go beyond what is written; the search for hidden meaning.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
I am convinced that we should go beyond what is written.
In fact, we all, including you, go beyond what is written in our daily life.
Jews who wanted converted Gentiles to get circumcised, appealed to what was written.
Until Paul, any Gentile who wanted to worship YHWH and keep the Law was expected to get circumcised. It was an integral part of the religion. YHWH was the God of Israel, and circumcision was a "perpetual covenant" for all generations, as per written in the Torah in unequivocal terms.
Then Paul comes and "spiritualizes" circumcision. He says that literal circumcision is optional, not important, and that we should rather have "the circumcision of the heart".
Then comes the author of the epistle to Hebrews and "spiritualize" the Sabbath. He says that the people of God should enter the rest of Christ, and do it today, not at any specific day of the calendar.
Paul and the author of Hebrews didn't concoct overnight an "spiritualized" version of a doctrine.
Such "spiritualized" truth did not come into existence for the first time when their pen touched the paper.
It had existed always, but revealed progressively. The gospel, I insist, is eternal.
I have already provided quotes from Paul that show that, in many of his writings, he did "spiritualize" concepts like death, life, resurrection, ascension to heaven, circumcision, Sabbath, atonement. He didn't do it in all his writing. In some he resorted to a more literal presentation of the subject. But as he said to Colossians, the mysteries, the hidden wisdom, are presented to more mature Christians.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
These are appropriate questions to everyone who believes the promise of Christ to return, including Muslims and Baha'is.
How would you recognize him?
If it is not by DNA, then, how? Physical appearance? Let's see:
The distance between Emmaus and Jerusalem is about 11 km. At a light pace, considering that people are having a conversation while walking (and a deep conversation), going from Jerusalem to Emmaus would take around 2 hours.
Just think: these two disciples of Jesus had spent about 3 years staring at his face and hearing his voice almost day and night, in all conditions. They had just seen him and heard him 3 days ago.
How did they fail to recognize him during those two hours of conversation?
The story says that their eyes "were opened" when Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them.
When reflecting on what had happened, they ask themselves: Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the way and while He opened the Scriptures to us?
So, the disciples recognized Jesus for what He did, and for the feelings His words produced in their hearts, not by how he looked.
Now let's go to the end of the story: at the moment the two disciples realize it is Jesus, He just vanishes out of their sight.
A "corporal" (but unrecognizable) Jesus is no longer required, because now they are convinced that he lives. They are convinced not by any feature of Jesus body, but by what Jesus does and makes them feel.
Doesn't the whole story tell us of a spiritual teaching beyond what is written?
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